Gorkana/consumer

Three UK agencies win Gold PR Lions

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:00:00 +0100

Weber Shandwick London, Golden Goose and Edelman London have walked away with Gold PR Lions from this year's Cannes Festival of Creativity.

Weber Shandwick London, in partnership with the Design & Technology Association, won for a campaign to ensure Design & Technology remained on the school curriculum for children aged 5 to 11. Following activity to show that the demise of D&T as a subject would deny opportunities to the next generation of children, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced that D&T would remain compulsory for all children up to the age of 14.

Golden Goose PR's 'Putting Sea Containers on the Map' for the Deerbrook Group saw a 100m x 70m photograph of the royal family unfurled over the Sea Containers Building, on London's South Bank, to gain publicity for the building which is being developed into a luxury hotel and offices

Edelman London's 'The Candidate' campaign for Heineken (in partnership with Publicis Italy) was a secretly filmed job interview to find talent that best fit the Heineken spirit.

This year's jury, which was headed up by Ketchum Europe CEO David Gallagher, awarded 95 PR Lions from 1296 entries, a 15% increase on last year's entries. The Cannes PR Lions are in their fifth year.

Edelman also picked up two silver Lions for its 'Halo 4' campaign for Microsoft X-Box in the tech and manufacturing and best launch or relaunch categories.

The Brooklyn Brothers picked up two Bronze Lions for its work with Promote Iceland, as did The Red Consultancy for its 'We Are David Bailey' campaign for Samsung.

Weber Shandwick, Clarion Communications, Philips UK and the Dublin office of FleishmanHillard also walked away with Bronze Lions.

The Grand Prix Lion PR award still hasn't been won by a PR agency. This year, Australian ad agency McCann Melbourne won the top award for its Metro Trains' 'Dumb Ways To Die' campaign, beating double Gold Lion winner Unilever's Dove's 'Real Beauty Sketches' campaign.

A full list of this year's PR Lions winners can be viewed here

Pink Lining calls on instinct

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:45:00 +0100

Pink Lining, the designer changing and maternity bag brand created by Charlotte Pearl, has called in instinct to handle its PR.

Charlotte, who also launched children's bag accessories brand PL Child in 2008, has briefed the agency to provide consumer and trade PR support across both the Pink Lining and PL Child brands.

The instinct team will work with Pink Lining's in-house PR team to create a media relations strategy to increase coverage across fashion and lifestyle consumer press, focussing on Christmas as a key period.

The agency will also aim to grow Charlotte's profile across lifestyle and business press.

Charlotte said: "We wanted an agency with strong media connections to generate coverage for Pink Lining and PL Child away from parenting press and into fashion and lifestyle press. The instinct team understands Pink Lining and PL Child’s brand ethos and brand values perfectly and I am confident that we will get strong results."

Jonathan Kirkby, instinct founder and director, said: "We are delighted to be working with Pink Lining. As an agency we have excellent experience working across parenting brands so I am thrilled to have such an exciting parenting brand like Pink Lining on board.

"As a business, Pink Lining is growing very quickly so we want to grow with the team and work hard to generate as much coverage for them as possible. With the birth of the royal baby coming up there should be plenty of opportunity!"

StyleChi briefs Cow

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0100

Cow PR has been brought in to handle the PR for StyleChi, an online site which fuses online shopping and social networking.

The agency has been briefed to drive traffic to the site and increase sales, as well as raise brand awareness and educate consumers about the StyleChi concept.

Products on StyleChi are priced for each customer depending on their relationship with the site and more active uses collect Chi points.

Cow will target press across social media and women’s consumer weekly and monthly titles, as well as online media and blogs.

The account will be led by Cow account director Gloria Trapezaris, with support from social media manager Jack Clothier and account executive Lydia Cardona.

Two wins for Brandnation

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:15:00 +0100

Brandnation has added two new accounts to its fashion portfolio after being tasked with doing the UK PR for Firetrap and Off Dutee.

Firetrap has briefed the agency to provide a fully integrated campaign, which will see a mix of festival, music and party programmes. Activity is designed to reach the brand's celebrity fan base which includes Professor Green, MTV's Laura Whitmore, members of You Me at Six, Sunday Girl and JLS.

Alina Wallace, head of fashion at Brandnation, said: "We are very excited to be working with Firetrap and have a very intensive campaign scheduled over the next year that is designed to both celebrate the brand’s heritage and engage a larger audience. This appointment has come at a very exciting time for the agency after several exciting account wins, as we continue to grow the business."

Off Dutee, a directional fashion brand for girls who favour a 'laid-back look', has tasked Brandnation to promote all products across the brand, targeting both consumer and trade media.

Sarah Miller, founder of Off Dutee, said: "Off Dutee is delighted to be the new addition to the Brandnation portfolio and is very excited to work with its very talented team on an intense PR plan. Brandnation is the perfect industry insider to help nurture OD and take the brand to its full potential."

Alina said: "Off Dutee has a fantastic product offering with great potential and a very bright future. It's a great addition to our fashion portfolio and we are very excited about working with the OD team."

27&More re-elects president

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:00:00 +0100

Bray Leino MD Roberta Fuke has been re-elected president of international PR network 27&More.

Roberta takes up a second two-year term heading up the network of independent consultancies with a track record in international communications.

27&More launched in 2007 and has members across Europe, China, India, Australia and the US.

Roberta said: "With a track record of success delivering cross-border campaigns for a wide variety of brands and businesses, backed by the passion and hands-on involvement of highly experienced 'drivers' in all member agencies, we believe we've got something special when it comes to multi-country campaign delivery.

"We make huge efforts to ensure that our teams get to know one another personally, sharing insight, sense-checking strategy, providing ongoing guidance and support regardless of campaign scale. The result for clients is truly 'joined-up', easy-to-manage cross-border campaigns delivered by people who genuinely work together, share the same values and passion and have a commitment to campaign success whatever the budget or brief."